"R. A. Lafferty - Stories 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

with."
"Have you but one?"
"Am I a millionaire that I should have a multiplicity of forks in my
house? He is a man with an important look, and I will not have him wait."
"This is humiliating," said Peter.
"I don't know what that is. I want my fork."
Peter gave the fork back to the Grollian man, and that man took it
in and set it before the human man of the better sort as a sign of the
modernity of his house.
"Were I not the meanest and weakest of men, he would not have abused
me so," Peter said.
"Do you not feel it at all," Teresa said. "Somebody has to be the
meanest and the weakest. The worlds are full of humiliating things. This
brings us close together."
This would have to be the final day for Peter Feeney on Groll's
Planet. Re had already garnered all the insufficient orders possible for his
product. He walked with Teresa and said the difficult things.
"When you have caught one, Teresa, you must do something with it.
Even turn it loose if you do not mean to keep it."
"Do you want I should turn you loose, Peter?"
"No. I want you to go with me on the ship when it goes tonight."
"There is only one way I will go."
"I have never thought of any other way."
"You will never have cause to be ashamed of me, Peter. I can dress,
where I have the means for it. I can play the lady, I understand how it is
done. I have even learned to walk in shoes. Were we in some more lucky
place, it might be that I would regain my beauty. It is the grinding hard
times that took it from me. I would change your luck. I have the languages,
and the sense of things, and I am much more intelligent than you are, With
me, you could attain a degree of success in even your miserable trade. It
can be a good life we make."
There is a sound when the invisible net is cast over one. There is
another sound when it is pulled in -- the faint clicking of the floats, the
tugging whisper of the weights, the squeaking of the lines when pulled taut.
Teresa was a fisherman's daughter, and she knew how to do it. The Peter-fish
was not a large nor a fat one, but she knew that he was the best she could
take in these waters.

They were married. They left in the ship for a happier place, a
better planet in a more amenable location where Teresa might regain her lost
beauty.
Floating Justice was achieved. All inequities were compensated. The
meanest and weakest man in the universe now possessed the Ultimate Treasure
of the universe.
Naturally they were happy. And naturally their happiness endured.
"There wasn't a catch to it?" you ask out of a crooked face. "There
is always a catch to it. It always goes sour at the end."
No. There was not a catch to it. It was perfect, and forever. It is
only in perverted fables that things go wrong at the end.
They grew in understanding of each other, received the glad news of